In a stunning act of generosity, Kenny Thompson — a father from Houston, Texas — has paid off the outstanding lunch debts of all of the children at a local elementary school where he mentors and tutors students. He was inspired to step up after reading about the school in Salt Lake City, Utah that recently garnered national attention after school board officials seized and threw out the lunches of up to 40 children because the students had unpaid balances on their lunch money accounts.
Speaking with local news station KSDK, Thompson explained how he came to the decision, saying, “I’m like, ‘Wow. I know that’s probably a situation at my school, and the school my son goes to, and the other schools I mentor at.’ So I came in and inquired about it.”
What Thompson discovered was that many students were subsisting on “reduced lunches” of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because their parents were unable to cover the price of hot lunch.
“These are elementary school kids,” Thompson told KSDK. “They don’t need to be worried about finances. They need to be worried about what grade they got in spelling.”
Rather than uselessly tsk the actions of the school system (not that it doesn’t deserve a good tsking), Thompson put his money where his mouth is and forked over $465 to cover the debts of over 60 students.
Hats off to Kenny! Now, let’s brainstorm a system that doesn’t ever leave poor school kids hungry.
Image via Shutterstock.
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